A Gauche Press: The website of Barry S. Willdorf » Politicshttp://agauchepress.com
A place for books, stories and commentaryMon, 10 Mar 2014 17:51:23 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.1IS CHRIS CHRISTIE AN ABUSER?http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/10/is-chris-christie-an-abuser/
http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/10/is-chris-christie-an-abuser/#commentsFri, 10 Jan 2014 19:59:19 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2126Continue reading →]]>I’m not claiming special expertise in this arena, but between following the recent news reports and reading stuff like Dear Abby, I think I have some idea what they look like. I think Chris Christie is an abuser. Here’s some behavior that supports my belief:

1) Elected officials have expressed fear of him much of the time.

2) He has a bad and unpredictable temper. One minute he is “joking” the next he is insulting, humiliating or yelling. His mood changes in minutes.

3) He criticizes people and puts them down.

4) He blames others for his behavior.

5) He employs threats.

6) He acts possessively and is controlling.

7) He is hypersensitive.

In this particular instance, people are struggling with a Christie motive for shutting down the western side of the George Washington Bridge, creating four days of traffic havoc. There are those who think it was due to a refusal by the Ft. Lee mayor to endorse Christie for governor. Others speculate that it had something to do with NJ Supreme Court appointments. For me, the obscurity of motive is very telling as it reinforces my suspicion of hypersensitivity and could be viewed as a threat.

Some people might argue that this is just politics. They may be right, but it would follow that being an abuser of others is a qualification for office. So the question becomes whether we want such a character trait for our elected officials when we wouldn’t condone it for spouses or parents.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/10/is-chris-christie-an-abuser/feed/0Who Is Responsible For America’s Gun Culture?http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/10/who-is-responsible-for-americas-gun-culture/
http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/10/who-is-responsible-for-americas-gun-culture/#commentsFri, 10 Jan 2014 16:09:18 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2124Continue reading →]]>We hear a lot about American gun culture these days. One side is willing to blame anything and everything but the guns. The other side mostly blames the guns for the massive uptick in gun violence. There are things about our society that are not easily changed, and I’m not about to come up with suggestions here. Recognizing the problems though is a first step in having a meaningful discussion.

I’m not a “blame the media” kind of guy, but I have to agree with the NRA on this one. For nearly my whole life, I’ve watched TV and films where someone gets shot and dies instantly, without even a bullet hole tearing up his shirt. Or he gets wounded and patched up in a couple of days, retaining the ability to shoot a gun. You just don’t get reality out of the American media when it comes to guns, getting shot, war or violence (with a few exceptions like Saving Private Ryan.) What you get is sanitized death or a quick recovery. If there is a nod to grief and pain, it’s wooden. Reality would depress the viewers who would soon flee to a nicer war.

If this wasn’t enough, we have a population that, to a high percentage, believes in an afterlife. Killing someone isn’t so bad if you believe you’re just sending him to a different place, without really hurting him. All you’re doing to him is simply evicting a nuisance from your turf. There’s no real need for remorse. Nothing to feel all that bad about. You haven’t killed their immortal soul. When I read that some parent has described her kid, the perp, as a good churchgoing lad, I tend to wonder whether that kid understands the nature and finality of death. As soothing as religion is for survivors mourning a loved one, it also gives some people the idea that death is not synonymous with finality.

Then along comes an avaricious gun industry, using shills, lackeys and sycophants to push for and justify putting increasingly powerful and lethal weapons in the hands of as many people as they can. The gun industry wants to sell guns. To do that, it has to trumpet a view of guns that is inconsistent with the way we actually live. The image they have selected is the rugged individualist surviving the jungle of society on his own, with only a machine gun to protect him. The truth is that none of us would last very long if that was the reality. But the gun industry feasts on this false image.

Electoral politics has to take some blame too. Elected officials require massive donations to keep their jobs, and donations involve payback. Why we don’t just come out and admit the system runs on pure, unfettered bribery is beyond me. The gun industry is willing to shell out big bucks to trusted pols. Who might they be? Well, the guys who want to let people carry loaded weapons into a bar come to mind. You know they’re loyal if they’re willing to sign on to something stupid. The more outrageous they get in writing gun bills, the happier Ruger, Browning, Colt and Smith and Wesson are.

It is important for a gun culture to sow distrust and divisiveness among the people so they will be scared to answer the door without packing heat. News and faux news media have to tilt their stories to at least hint that there is a racial issue. (“Oh my god Mary, there’s a black person at the door. I’m going to have to shoot.” “No Joseph, don’t shoot. It’s our daughter’s new boyfriend.” “Boyfriend, you say. Now I’m going to shoot for sure.”) Let’s get real here. A lot of people own guns, not for sport, but because they are afraid. Racial stereotyping is important in that context and the more fear you can engender, the more guns you will sell.

It’s also critical that there be no restrictions on gun ownership. Go to a gun show. You’ll find the price of an AR-15 is exactly the same for an FBI agent and paranoid schizophrenic with a list of potential victims in his back pocket. The profit margin is the same for the sane and the nuts. So let the lunatic stock up on arms rather than placing a heavy burden on the law abiding citizen to fill out an innocuous form that will reveal his law abidingness. Nobody (well almost nobody) complains when they have to do paperwork to get a drivers license but these same folks wring their hands at having to fill out a form to buy a gun. God forbid they’d be required to have to take a test and identify the safety, or be reminded not to leave a round chambered.

Another good thing to do if you want to stimulate a gun culture is to give shooters great legal defenses. Hit someone over the head with a shovel, it’s off to prison for you. Shoot him; well you were just scared for your life, weren’t you. (Good ol’ boy just standin’ his ground.) This works particularly well for white people because they have been conditioned to fear those with darker skin.

Of course, we can’t forget about the psychological angle. I’m not a Freudian but it seems to me that there is a correlation between the number of rounds you can shoot and virility. I mean, what kind of weakling wants to shoot off a meager ten rounds when the other guy can do thirty. Who’s the pretty young lass going to pick anyway? The guy with the most potent gun, that’s who. So it’s important to subliminally associate guns with masculinity. We want to get to a point where one’s manhood can be evaluated based upon the potency of the weapon he’s packing.

If this keeps up, we’ll all become a Rambo, packing a .30 cal. automatic—staggering down the street drunk, keeping our fearful eyes peeled for armed locos not unlike ourselves and people who don’t look like us. There’ll be a hell of a lot of shooting, but no one will really get hurt because God has provided us with an afterlife and we stood our ground. Once there was a law in Dodge City that required cowpokes to check their guns with the sheriff when they crossed into city limits. It seems rather quaint in the 21st Century when we have a population maybe ten times what it was then. After all, we have ten times as many people to fear and ten times as many targets. State governments are issuing concealed carry permits as if they were free samples. Back in the Wild West only gamblers and crooks concealed their weapons. No longer. Thanks to our gun culture, we’ve all gotten out of Dodge.

A recent article in the NY Times resurrected the firing of Dick Metcalf from Guns and Ammo Magazine. Metcalf was an editor and featured columnist for G&A for many years. Up until he wrote an article suggesting that it was time to begin a discussion on the limits, if any of the 2nd Amendment, his credentials among gun aficionados was impeccable. It turned out that Metcalf was fired because his employers feared that his continued association with G&A would negatively impact its relationship with its big advertisers, who happen —surprise, surprise— to be major firearms manufacturers. Judging from the hate mail Metcalf says he’s received, it would seem that some folks got so irate over the idea that the 2nd Amendment had any limits at all, they were willing to shut him up, to the point of homicide. (For a quick look at what some of the limits are, or might be, go to http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/a-second-amendment-pop-quiz/ )

About two months later, Duck Dynasty’s patriarch, Phil Robertson, got suspended by the A&E channel for expressing opinions in public derogatory of gays. While the issue was not fleshed out, it seems clear that A&E’s executives feared the sponsors of Duck would not like one of their stars alienating a segment of their customer base. So here again, a private employer disciplined an employee for speech that their advertisers wouldn’t want associated with their brand. However, in this case, unlike the Metcalf affair, the Ailes/Limbaugh troglodyte faction began screaming about free speech. Suddenly they became gung ho 1st Amendment champions to shame the ACLU.

To hear the spin and hype oozing forth from Fox and Idiots-On-The-Air you might think there was a constitutional question here. In case anyone is in doubt, the constitution applies to the government’s use of power to stifle free speech (1st Amendment) or to limit firearms (2nd Amendment.) Private employers can justifiably terminate or suspend an employee who pisses off an advertiser or its customers. Just how long does anyone think Megyn Kelly would last at Fox if she came out while confessing she was a socialist?

The difference between the Metcalf and Robertson cases, as we all know but are reluctant to address, is only one of substantive issues. If you want to talk about limits to the 2nd Amendment, you’ve got no 1st Amendment rights. But, according to the spittle that contaminates the right-wing airwaves, if you want to put the hurt on gays or lesbians, you’ve got a constitutional right. So I guess the answer to my initial question is that the 2nd Amendment trumps the 1st over there in the far reaches of right-wing land. Mao Tse Tung said, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” I wonder how they would feel to discover they agreed with him.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/06/duck-blind-reasoning/feed/0A ROAD TO PEACE IN SAN FRANCISCO’S EVICTION WARShttp://agauchepress.com/2014/01/06/a-road-to-peace-in-san-franciscos-eviction-wars/
http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/06/a-road-to-peace-in-san-franciscos-eviction-wars/#commentsMon, 06 Jan 2014 19:06:21 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2115Continue reading →]]>I was a lawyer in San Francisco for 41 years. I represented many tenants and a small number of landlords. For some, what I am about to write will be considered heresy.

Today we are immersed in yet another battle in San Francisco’s seemingly perpetual landlord/tenant wars. We have come to the point where symbols have replaced substance. Caricatures and stereotypes prevail over individual situations. The word “landlord” has become synonymous with Simon Legree. Just describing someone as a “tenant” conjures a poor, victimized damsel in distress. Layered upon this good versus evil motif is an incipient intra-class war between the current renters with a day job of barista (white hat) and the software engineer from Duluth who wants to live in a cultured city now that she’s gotten the job of her dreams at a high tech giant (black hat.) Neither of them owns the means of production (they are both workers) but because one is more affluent there is “have not” resentment. Meanwhile, the 1% can sit back and enjoy the battle, as if they’d bought ringside seats at a championship prizefight. Add to this a disingenuous and fearful bunch of elected officials who, not wanting to alienate the voters, 70% of whom are tenants, perpetuate a false hope that they have the power to block economic realities.

For those who need a recap, the last year or so has witnessed civic warfare between the artistic, creative and service worker communities, or what I’ll call for simplicity, “current renters” on the one hand and the “Techies” who have money to burn on housing on the other. Landlords, as one must expect, would like to collect as much rent as possible. Techies are pricing current renters out of the housing market.

Current renters argue they got here first and take credit for making the City desirable. (News flash, it’s always been desirable.) Now they can’t afford to live here. They resent those Google buses that carry the Techies south to their cushy cubicles on sprawling, upscale commercial campuses where they earn six figures and then return them in the evenings to San Francisco where they fill up the bars, coffee shops and nightspots. They are furious the Techies are willing to pay big bucks to live in “their” City and livid at landlords who are willing to accommodate them by ousting the poor, elderly and disabled from rent controlled units using any excuse possible. Meanwhile the current renters demand more from elected officials. But in many important respects, City government is blocked by state laws on the rent control front. The only thing they seem able to do is bring on line “affordable” housing to replace the housing stock being gobbled up by the Techies, or to take feeble half-swings at the Ellis Act, (The Ellis Act, Government Code sections 7060-7060.7, is a state law that permits a landlord to get out of the rental business. It should be noted that Ellis Act evictions ordinarily do not affect the market rents, except by reducing supply. However, Rent Board statistics show the number of units withdrawn from rental housing over the last decade under Ellis is relatively small when compared even with the annualized totals of evictions.) Some of this narrative is true but there is a lot that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

The San Francisco Rent Board provides some useful statistics to test current renter narratives. Here’s the story on evictions in general and Ellis Act evictions in particular.

Year Eviction notices Ellis filings Units

2004-5 1554 130 480

2005-6 1536 100 454

2006-7 1475 89 330

2007-8 1600 92 393

2008-9 1315 36 165

2009-10 1372 34 108

2010-11 1328 24 72

2011-12 1421 42 121

2012-13 1934 57 192

(Source: SF Rent Board Statistics)

These numbers reveal that the eviction and Ellis Act activity is closely tied to the state of the economy. In boom years, landlords seek higher rents and increase evictions or Ellis their properties, mostly, I think to sell tenancies-in-common. In “bust” years (second half of 2008 through first half of 2011) there was very low Ellis activity, likely because there was less income to buy units, financing was harder to get and there was a lot of cheap foreclosed property around. Evictions dropped in those years too, not significantly, but the reasons seem to have changed from predominantly owner move-ins in the early part of the decade to nuisance and breaches of a lease agreement more recently. (Again: Rent Board statistics)

Recent news articles report that Ellis Act evictions since 2010 are on the rise by about 70%. Some call for the repeal of the Ellis Act. This piece of legislation is not a City ordinance, but rather a state law. The likelihood of its repeal is slim. Even slimmer is a final court ruling that will, in effect, require a small segment of the population to stay in business when they wish to quit. You can think long and hard to find this kind of edict applied to any other segment of our community. We don’t force farmers to give food to the hungry. We don’t force clothiers to supply the poor with deeply discounted clothing.

The abuses current tenants ascribe to the Ellis Act seem to be the result of cherry-picking the stats because it compares boom years with bust years. Looking back to 2004-2007 we find numbers showing that Ellis Act evictions are not as high as they were then. Indeed, the statistical average for Ellis Act evictions over the last decade (less the last half of 2013) is annually 231 units. This is forty units less than the last annual rent board statistics. Even if the Ellis Act were amended in Sacramento, it wouldn’t do much to fix this housing problem. Eviction doesn’t get a landlord a legal Techie tenant. The unit must be removed from the rental market.

On the other hand, it is certain that hundreds of landlords have wanted to get out of the business of providing housing under San Francisco’s rent controls. Over the past decade, almost 2000 landlords applied for Ellis Act evictions. Since 2004 this removed about 2,315 housing units from the rental stock. From this, I draw the inference that most of the applicant/landlords who sought an Ellis Act relief from rent controls owned four or fewer units. These are owners who are the most vulnerable to financial cycles and ought to have a right to get out of the business if they want to. Preventing them from doing so by hobbling the Ellis Act makes them slaves to both the City and the tenants. If it made it to court it is unlikely that such restrictions would pass constitutional muster.

San Francisco’s rent control ordinance was enacted in 1977 as an “emergency” measure due to an already diminished pool of affordable rental units and rent gouging by big landlords like Angelo Sangiacomo/Trinity Properties. It covers only then existing rental units­—an aging and declining stock by anyone’s reckoning. Units constructed after its enactment are exempt from rent controls. Originally, rent controls covered only larger buildings, focusing on big businesses, but under tenant pressure, it now covers even a single rental unit in a two unit building where the owner occupies the other unit (but not a single family residence.) Controlled units are subject to limited annual rent increases that don’t take into account the economic needs an individual landlord is facing. There is no freedom of contract when it comes to rent after the initial lease term. While a large landlord with dozens or hundreds of units can cover a loss on one unit by jacking up rent to market on the many that will shortly turn over, the turnover rate for one-to-four units doesn’t provide those landlords with similar flexibility. There is also a prohibition on evictions for reasons other than “just cause”, which often means that such evictions become a court case. Under a state law (Costa-Hawkins, Civil Code sections 1954.50-1954.535) when the last original tenant leaves a controlled unit, the landlord is free to raise the rent without restriction. The unit will then be at market but controlled as to future rent increases and the “just cause” provisions of the rent control ordinance continue in effect.

Over the years, a politically effective tenants’ rights lobby has been able to tweak the ordinance, supposedly making it stronger. However, what really has happened is that the changes have made the risk of a courtroom loss exponentially more dangerous for a smaller landlord. The law’s triple damages and attorneys fees provisions have made it nearly suicidal for owners of one or two rental units to defend against wrongful eviction charges. Tenants have powerful legal remedies and a slew of attorneys ready, willing and able to represent them on a contingency fee basis. When I was practicing law­ I represented both tenants and landlords. I also mediated many such disputes. Although my evidence is anecdotal, I came to the conclusion that small landlords were easy pickings. The playing field between owners of a couple rental units and a determined tenant with an adept attorney was tilted in favor of the tenant, and when I represented a tenant I took full advantage of it.

We read that there has been a spike in evictions due to the Techies, who are drawing enviable incomes from the explosion of successful firms in Silicon Valley, but they don’t want to live there. They desire the cool, hip City. By their very affluence, Techies raise the market price on housing, but their migration has a negative impact on the culture that spawned their desire. Their salaries and their youth guarantee that enough of them will be engaged in conspicuous consumption to engender resentment among the current renters, who earn far less. To make matters worse, they clog the highways with expensive new cars or bus to work in ultra-modern, Wi-Fi friendly, air-conditioned private buses. Such behavior engenders anger, if not envy, among those who view themselves as “have-nots.” This kind of change is not new. As a 43-year resident of the City, I have seen several of these boom-time demographic earthquakes. But people have the right to live where they want to, if they can afford it. Current renters will get no traction advocating a contrary proposition.

Techies are not the 1%ers. They are workers too and subject to the same vagaries of the market that the current renters are experiencing. They could be jobless when the economy busts again, (and it will) stuck with leases at the high rents they are paying, and homeless in short order. So it is particularly discouraging to watch the spawning of a handful of nihilists who ooze out of every generation’s genetic pool to inflict petty destruction and abuse on people who have momentarily managed to pull their heads out of the muck. They claim revolutionary motives, but they are without a class perspective. They are actually petty criminals. I say this because they have neither a program nor a political justification for their conduct. Resentment is not platform and though I’ve not done the research, I’d lay money on the fact that the 1%ers don’t take the Google bus.

The Rent Board statistics show a 73% increase in eviction notices from 2011-2012 to 2112-2013, but they remain well short of the number of eviction notices filed between 1996 and 2001. This increase represents about 500 units. The tenants assert this is proof abuses continue to occur in such massive numbers that further amendments to the law are called for. A current landlord of four or fewer rental units wrongfully evicting a protected tenant takes the risk of thousands per month in actual damages, trebled, plus attorneys fees to the tenant. It is also illegal to Ellis a building and then rent its units. These are substantial deterrents to landlord abuse.

Is it true that landlords of rent controlled units are now willing to (wrongfully?) evict so they can rent to Techies? Is the potential reward worth the risk? To answer those questions we have to investigate where these additional 500 evictions are coming from. In 2012-2013, 1100 eviction notices were based on allegations that tenants created a nuisance, breached some provisions of the lease or they were owner move-ins. Owner move-ins also require the owner to live in the unit, so this ground for eviction would not result in a quick turnover to a Techie unless the owner was lying and prepared to pay big-time penalties for his avarice. Rent Board statistics show that the number of tenant-initiated wrongful evictions has not changed much over the past decade. So we can’t really say landlords (particularly smaller landlords) are engaged in more wrongful evictions now that the Techies have invaded.

If the problem were wrongful evictions under the current rent control laws; tenants’ rights organizations wouldn’t be calling for more legislation. Single-family residences are exempt from rent controls. Post-1977 rental units are exempt from rent controls. Landlords can simply increase the rent to market at the end of an existing lease, forcing out a current tenant. Costa-Hawkins stands in the way of adding such units to rent controls. Under the Ellis Act, landlords are permitted to permanently remove rental units from the housing stock, letting them remain vacant or converting them to tenancies-in-common. It would take acts from the state legislature to alter this status. From the wrongful eviction numbers, I conclude that the Ellis Act, and the owner move-in just cause provisions are sufficient to deter whatever it is a law can deter. The Band-Aids the City might come up with would therefore impact only existing rent controlled units, but to what purpose? Are we prepared to say that tenants can commit nuisances or breach leases with impunity? Can a tenant set up a meth lab in a unit and the landlord do nothing about it even after receiving complaints from other tenants?

There was a photo in the paper the other day of a demonstration in front of such a bus, with a fellow carrying a poster aloft declaring “no evictions.” Who is this guy to say that we are entitled to inflict all of the woes of our current housing crisis upon one small segment of our community without regard for their personal needs? What does “No evictions” mean? A tenant no longer has to pay rent? A tenant can destroy a unit without consequence? A landlord cannot decide she no longer wants to be in the rental business? To find out what volume of injustice was being alleged, I turned next to the apples with apples numbers: nuisance and breach of lease notices. In fiscal year 2010-2011 there were 689 such notices. In 2012-2013 there were 860. The difference is an increase of 171 eviction notices. What are we supposed to legislate for these 171? A comprehensive solution does not lie in attempting to impose more just cause restrictions on a dwindling demographic.

To douse this fire the City has negotiated for about 40,000 affordable housing units. Unfortunately, they may not be affordable for many rent control tenants who currently pay 1970’s and 1980’s rents. Such renters may be priced out of even the affordable housing market. Current renters who now share one to three bedroom units with four, five or six people, many of whom are not on the lease, may find it difficult to qualify for an affordable unit.

One issue I’ve not yet addressed is families with children. San Francisco is a notoriously family-unfriendly venue. We care about the disabled, the elderly, the bicyclists and the dog-lovers, but children don’t seem to make the cut. It is a simple truth that a three-bedroom unit is more affordable for a group of young adults than it is for a family of four, five or six. Whether current renters or Techies, their contribution to the debate is stark silence. Both these groups are predominantly child-free. Many who create a little urchin, move. If San Francisco wants to maintain true diversity, it must also make accommodations for families with children. Renters should be entitled to a housing tax credit for their dependent children.

Do I have a solution? I would like to see a plan that creates a housing fund to phase out rent control, so that genuinely eligible tenants (based on means) can afford to stay in their current homes or move to affordable housing. I want landlords to be able to earn a fair return on their capital investments, so they will have incentive to continue providing housing. Here’s my rough suggestion: Phase out rent controls, although not necessarily the just cause eviction restrictions. Units removed from rent control should convert to affordable housing that is below market. Money for the housing fund should come through a special graduated income tax on all City property owners, developers and residents to provide low-income renters who are means-tested with subsidies putting them within reach of affordable housing. As for the Techies, if they are willing to pay astronomical rents to live here, they should be willing to pay the tax. All property owners should pay the tax. Renters also. Current tenants who have the means to pay for affordable housing should be ineligible for a subsidy but still entitled affordable housing and eviction protections. Current tenants who are high income should pay market rents. Vacant units should be charged to the landlord as income at market rents thus increasing their housing tax. This will deter Ellis evictions and phony owner move-ins. It should also encourage landlords to keep their units well maintained and occupied. With the tax plan, we lose the 1977 cutoff.

Housing policy is not black and white, good and evil. It is however, a community issue, and everyone must carry its burdens, not just a segment of society that the majority gets to avoid, otherwise it becomes oppression, fuels rancor, encourages law breaking and exacerbates divisions among citizens. No doubt there will be a number who will be really put out by a tax proposal, but I am convinced everyone has to share the pain. No one should come out a complete winner or a complete loser. It is easy to dump a housing program on a small segment of society while pontificating “no evictions” but we all benefit from the quality of life in the City, whether through property values, jobs or culture. Indeed, those with enough motivation to pick up a placard and demonstrate implicitly admit that they benefit from living here. The harder task is to accept an economic detriment for one’s self. We should be striving to level the playing field, not tilt it one way or the other. This requires us all to give something so that we can continue to live in this great city, be able to look the other fellow in the eye and know we’re in this together.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2014/01/06/a-road-to-peace-in-san-franciscos-eviction-wars/feed/1OUR NATIONAL INSECURITY AGENCYhttp://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/our-national-insecurity-agency/
http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/our-national-insecurity-agency/#commentsSat, 21 Dec 2013 22:17:44 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2107Continue reading →]]>A few weeks after 9/11 there was a meeting at my house. What it was about, I don’t recall. But of course the conversation came around to the bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I remember a woman practically in tears, saying that she was so scared she was thinking of moving to Canada. Now I suppose Canada’s a less likely target than the Great Satan, but that might make them an easier hit. If the jihadis will bomb London subways and Spanish trains, who’s to say they wouldn’t target Toronto or Ottawa? But that’s a risk management issue. It’s not a response to a determined enemy whose goal is to demolish western civilization and return us to a monolithic, theocratic Dark Ages. Under those circumstances, as GW said, “You can run but you can’t hide.” But the cost includes giving up those freedoms and liberties that make our enemies envious.

Unfortunately, the National (In)Security Agency (NSA) is on a mission to do just that. When asked before Edward Snowden blew the whistle on them, you’d get blatant perjury from former NSA head honcho General Michael Hayden who, under oath at a Senate hearing, categorically denied scooping up information on millions of American citizens. Why did he lie? Was it because he had something to hide? It usually is when you’re lying. Now, after the Snowden revelations, we are being given partial admissions, excuses and promises that the government will put some feeble reforms in place. Why should we trust their assurances? They are obviously willing to lie, bold faced, to U.S. senators.

Ask NSA’s current head, four-star general Keith Alexander, and he will deny that they are searching the records of three hundred million Americans. He will testify that all they get is three hundred million phone numbers of callers, the phone numbers of the recipients, the date, time and length of call. He will tell you that he doesn’t identify the people behind those phone numbers, unless the calls look suspicious and when that happens they apply metadata tags to see whether certain words appear in the call. This, he contends, is not really a search, and if it is, they are relying on rulings by a “court”—which, he reluctantly admits, is the notorious FISA court, the only court in the U.S. where the judges are anonymous, there is no right to appear and oppose the government’s scheme and the decision is secret.

If we don’t agree that they can keep it all secret, Gen. Alexander tells us, the terrorists will find out and we’ll all get blown up. Well, a search is a search is a search. In fact, that’s what the NSA is supposed to be doing—searching. And the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution states:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

This amendment came about because the drafters of the Constitution were attempting to address an abuse, the general search. A general search means the government is just casting a net and pulling in anything and everything they can snag. The drafters said the government couldn’t do that. But, by Gen. Alexander’s own admissions, that is precisely what the government is doing. Collecting three-hundred million phone numbers with dates, times, length and places sounds to me like the seizure of phone records of an entire population. The claim that they don’t always follow through by getting the names of the caller and recipient, or listening in, which Gen. Alexander argues, makes the exercise constitutional, is dissembling because the government can do it if they want to. This is nothing more that what police do when they sift through evidence. Some is useful. Some is not. It’s whether you stole the goods that counts, not whether you were able to fence them. And despite this fig leaf of a FISA court, the law is what the plain language of the Fourth Amendment says it is. You want to seize phone records? Get a warrant based upon probable cause.

What NSA is doing is getting probable cause for a further search based upon an unconstitutional seizure. And they should get it from a proper, constitutional court. A secret court is unconstitutional and a purported constitutional lawyer like President Obama knows it. King George III had those kinds of secret courts. It is the reason for the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments. Lord Acton, a Nineteenth Century British historian and politician said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”

Right now I am fearful that our president has succumbed to a kind of Lord of the Rings temptation. I know it’s a lot easier to cut the corners and he sure doesn’t want a 9/11 on his plate, but let’s just say that the point of the Bill of Rights is to keep the government from cutting those corners. Otherwise, pretty soon, we’ve got no meaningful Bill of Rights and Al Qaeda wins.

There’s this old trial lawyer joke. “If you don’t have the facts, pound on the law. If you don’t have the law, pound on the facts. If you don’t have the facts or the law, pound on the table.” The general does just that when tries to scare us by claiming that if we don’t allow the government to trample on the Constitution we’ll get our asses bombed. Engendering fear is the last resort for guys without a case. “Surrender your freedom,” they tell us. “Let us protect you and you won’t get hurt.”

Now I’m not one to advocate that the average Joe should step up to pinch-hit for pros in the security game. That’s not my cup of tea. I pay taxes for better people than me to do that dirty work. And I can understand the zealotry that many of them seek to bring to their mission. But, no matter how professional they may be, these NSA people are human after all. They have a perspective that ranks catching terrorists, playing free video games and checking out wanna-have girlfriends above protecting our constitutional rights. And they have an interest in calling sketchy people out there terrorists because the more of them there are—whether true or not—the more they can sell their invasions of our liberties to a frightened citizenry. Terror is an industry, not just an act.

As you can tell, I am pretty skeptical of the need for all this fear-driven surveillance. I don’t see why we ought to believe that the NSA is run more effectively than, let’s say, Congress. I don’t believe that the NSA’s computer system is less flawed than the one that brought us the Obamacare rollout. I believe that with hundreds of millions of calls to monitor, a bunch of low-level enlisted personnel dragooned from various military services are going to miss a load of leads in the first place, then dig a bunch of dry holes, then miss simple coded messages. Who the hell are we kidding here? Our enemies are as competent and capable as the next guy, as well, unfortunately, as being more determined. We just aren’t going to catch all the balls they throw our way. Benghazi proved that. We have a global presence that’s spread very thin, and we piss off a lot of people around the world. Us getting attacked is the price we pay for that strategy.

When I hear these explanations from NSA people who have a vested interest in keeping their sinecures and their raison d’etre I am remind of the last line of our national anthem: ”The land of the free and the home of the brave.” And I wonder, where the hell all those folks are, now that our Fourth Amendment rights are hanging in the balance.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/our-national-insecurity-agency/feed/0A SECOND AMENDMENT POP QUIZhttp://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/a-second-amendment-pop-quiz/
http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/a-second-amendment-pop-quiz/#commentsSat, 21 Dec 2013 21:54:53 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2104Continue reading →]]>Courts have consistently held that each of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution has limits. For example, discussing the First Amendment, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated: “You can’t shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater.” (Unless, of course, there is a fire.) The Second Amendment states:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Is the Second Amendment is an exception to the rule that each amendment has its limits. How far do you think the Second Amendment goes? I’ve developed a little quiz that addresses that question. Precede each question with the clause: “IS THE GOVERNMENT VIOLATING THE SECOND AMENDMENT WHEN…”

1) it prohibits citizens from bringing guns into prisons and jails?

2) it prohibits citizens from carrying guns into courtrooms?

3) it prohibits citizens from carrying guns on airplanes?

4) it prohibits citizens from carrying guns in Congress?

5) it prohibits citizens from carrying guns in public legislative hearings?

6) it prohibits citizens from owning machine guns?

7) it prohibits citizens from mounting machine guns on the backs of their pickup trucks?

10) it regulates the length of knife blades that can be carried in public?

11) it bars from schools citizens who are carrying guns?

12) it bars from children’s playgrounds citizens who are carrying guns?

13) it limits the rights of citizens to carry guns on military installations?

14) it requires permits for the concealed carrying of firearms?

15) it requires persons who wish to keep and bear arms to pass a background check?

16) it prohibits ex-felons from possessing guns?

17) it prohibits the mentally deranged from possessing guns?

18) it prohibits convicted spousal abusers of possessing guns?

19) it prohibits citizens from carrying loaded guns in vehicles?

20) it recognizes the right of a property owner to bar persons carrying weapons from her/his/its private property?

If you answered “no” to ANY ONE of these questions, you believe that there are limits on the Second Amendment. Your next step is to decide where to place the limits on it, and why. For example, what’s the differenc

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/21/a-second-amendment-pop-quiz/feed/0DIVORCE: NORTH KOREAN STYLEhttp://agauchepress.com/2013/12/18/divorce-north-korean-style/
http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/18/divorce-north-korean-style/#commentsThu, 19 Dec 2013 01:15:07 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2102Continue reading →]]>Last week, North Korea’s second-in-command, Jang Song Thaek faced a special military tribunal and was promptly executed. Immediately, pundits and political analysts began asking questions. Did this show a Kim Jong Un to be a weakened, fearful “Supreme Leader?” Or was it a consolidation of power that strengthened his hand? Speculation is the key word when it comes to the opaque nation of North Korea. So I think my speculation is just as good as the next guy’s. Here are my facts:

The original charges against Jang included “womanizing.”

Jang was rumored to be estranged from his wife, Kim’s aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, and has been said to be in favor of removing her husband from power.

Kim Kyong-hui, while not present at the state memorial to Kim’s father Kim Jong Il, was seen at a state funeral a few days after the execution.

Kim Jong Un executed his former girlfriend last August (while Jang was still in power.)

So we know that the Kims view executions as a solution to domestic problems. We have cause to believe that there were domestic problems between Jang Song Thaek and Kim Kyong-hui. We know she survived the purge. Could this whole thing be nothing more than a banal, neo-Shakespearian drama? Was Kim just doing his auntie a favor and all the other stuff just a cover story? We’ll never really know because the “trial” was secret and Jang didn’t have much of a chance to mount a defense. What we do know is that if the rumors of estrangement are true—as is likely given the few facts that have leaked out—Kim would have heard the worst a long time ago and this chronology supplies telling evidence of the untruthfulness of the power grab plot charges, but is very much in keeping with the womanizing part.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/18/divorce-north-korean-style/feed/0YOU HAVE TO START SOMEWHEREhttp://agauchepress.com/2013/12/18/you-have-to-start-somewhere/
http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/18/you-have-to-start-somewhere/#commentsWed, 18 Dec 2013 06:14:39 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2100Continue reading →]]>About thirty percent of the five-thousand member American Studies Association just voted 2-1 to boycott Israeli universities in protest against Israeli human-rights abuses in their treatment of the Palestinian population. When asked to justify the boycott, American Studies Association President, Curtis Marez, acknowledged that many countries have worse human rights records than Israel but demurred, saying: “one has to start somewhere.”

I believe in a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestinian conflict. I detest the construction of the wall. I loathe the destruction of Palestinian property and the outright theft of West Bank land for settlers, many of whom have the racial politics of Nazis. I think that the US should limit its military support for Israel until it comes to the table with a serious, good faith peace plan, which it has not done.

On the other hand, I am keen to the threat posed by the likes of Hamas and groups even more terroristic. I understand the existential risk to the Jewish people who live in Israel. They should not have to tolerate armed, hostile zealots on their borders, aiming to destroy their country. Indeed, since they deny Israel’s legitimacy, I question how Palestinians of that ilk can even come to the table and negotiate with an entity they do not recognize as a legitimate.

There are human rights abuses, to be sure. But there is a significant element of the Palestinian population whose hostility toward Israel would exist whether or not there were human rights abuses. They lost their homes and properties during war, so of course they’re pissed, and some of them are into blowing up whatever and whomever they can get close to. These are folks that have long memories. Every day, I read of the scores of Muslims murdered by other Muslims in the Middle East. Sunnis bomb Shiites and vice versa. Their grievances run back to the Seventh Century. By contrast the death toll of Palestinians from IDF actions is miniscule. We take more casualties at US high schools.

But when someone justifies behavior with “one has to start somewhere,” I hear: “First they came for the Jews.” We’ve done it before. We can do it again. And these are academics after all. How can we expect Israelis to respond to this? My guess is that they will view it as antisemitism and circle the wagons. They will think that anti-Jewish sentiments are rife in their one big ally. They will be resentful and distrusting that we will have their backs in the long haul. Unlikely though is them saying: “Oops, sorry, we’ll treat you guys better in the future.” It’s going to take a Mandela to settle this conflict, and I don’t see anyone close to him on either side. All I see is a bunch of bitter old men on all sides who are great at holding grudges but lousy at making peace—while simultaneously pandering to their bases of extremists. The American Studies Association vote isn’t likely to encourage leaders on either side to grow the pair required to make a peace where everybody is going to have to give up something.

The Israelis are going to have to vacate the West Bank back to 1967 borders and take their settlers with them unless they agree to live under what likely would be Muslim majority rule. The Palestinians are going to have to recognize Israel and get the rest of the Middle East to sign on to that. (Yes, even Iran.) Diplomatic relations will have to be established and normalized. There will have to be secure, unfettered passage permitted between Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinians will have to de-claw their jihadi elements. Resources such as water will have to be fairly divided, and the border between the two states will have to be demilitarized.

I want there to be academic freedom. I want Palestinian professors and teachers to be able to travel without hindrance. In fact, I want everyone to be able to travel without hindrance. And I think that the restrictions placed on Palestinian travel by the Israeli government are draconian, nonsensical and counter-productive. But academics whose asses are not in peril going after Jews first for the same, or worse transgressions committed daily all over the world, come on. Of course it’s got an ivy tower, anti-Semitic tinge to it.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/18/you-have-to-start-somewhere/feed/1Apartheid and Obamacarehttp://agauchepress.com/2013/12/09/apartheid-and-obamacare/
http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/09/apartheid-and-obamacare/#commentsMon, 09 Dec 2013 22:26:45 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2087Continue reading →]]>When a politician has little or no affinity for a newsworthy issue or event yet attempts to draw analogy between what is inundating the media and his or her own agenda, you can bet that the reason is rank opportunism. We see this all the time when politicians attempt to liken their adversaries to Hitler or Nazism, or have the temerity to profess that he or she has channeled Martin Luther King and he would support the rights of business owners to discriminate based on race. The latest of these shameful gambits comes from the mouth of Rick Santorum, who recently pontificated that Obamacare is like apartheid.

How so? One may well ask. How does violently preventing someone from enjoying the full benefits of citizenship based upon race liken to a program that has the intention of providing affordable medical insurance to people who right now can’t afford it and who have burdened the rest of the population with the costs of their health care?

Of course Santorum’s statement is absurd on its face, but absurdity is not the issue here. Paraphrasing P.T. Barnum, when asked what were the best seats on the house, he said: ”The ones with asses in them.” Likewise, when a politician sees a media blitz, she or he just can’t resist getting in on it somehow, even if it requires inane commentary.

What I take from Santorum’s little tactic is that he is testing the waters for a presidential run. He wanted cheap publicity. Nelson Mandela had just died. It was all over the news. Brendan Behan said: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity except your obituary.” Rick Santorum was listening. Even as I write this, I am giving him publicity. He has the anti-Obama folks in his pocket, and they aren’t going to give a shit whether his analogy has validity. They are just going to hear his name and that he is against health insurance for the uninsured. As for the rest of us, we have a tendency to want to address the merits of the statement. If we do that, we lose because the name Santorum gets associated with ”enemy of liberals.” That’s the wonderful thing about his strategy. He doesn’t lose votes by sounding like a dumb fuck.

]]>http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/09/apartheid-and-obamacare/feed/0A DO NOTHING CONGRESShttp://agauchepress.com/2013/12/06/a-do-nothing-congressrecent-news-reports-have-claimed-that-the-current-congress-has-passed-fewer-laws-that-any-prior-congress-in-u-s-history-i-am-particularly-struck-by-the-critical-perspective-some/
http://agauchepress.com/2013/12/06/a-do-nothing-congressrecent-news-reports-have-claimed-that-the-current-congress-has-passed-fewer-laws-that-any-prior-congress-in-u-s-history-i-am-particularly-struck-by-the-critical-perspective-some/#commentsSat, 07 Dec 2013 00:49:49 +0000Barry Willdorfhttp://agauchepress.com/?p=2075Continue reading →]]>Recent news reports have claimed that the current Congress has passed fewer laws than any prior Congress in U.S. history. I am particularly struck by the critical perspective some progressives have attached to this factoid, and it calls to mind Abraham Lincoln’s quote: “When the legislature is in session, no one is safe.”

We ought to be thankful for this particular “do nothing” Congress. I mean, what does Rachel Maddow want anyway; the repeal of Obamacare? Perhaps the Keystone pipeline? Revocation of the existing minimum wage? A dragnet for undocumented persons, their incarceration in camps and ultimate deportation to places they have never lived? Perhaps some incentive payments to BP encouraging them not to spill again? A few more wars: Libya, Syria, Iran, Somalia? Anti-abortion laws? A national ban on same-sex marriages? Christian prayer in those few remaining public schools we can “afford”? An end to Social Security? I can go on and on with what a “do something” Congress might cook up. We have plenty of Republican-controlled state legislatures to provide examples.

So I think the progressives ought to rethink their complaints about this Congress and be grateful that it has passed the fewest laws in American history. There’s no telling what malicious mischief this current crop of crazies might come up with, particularly when enabled by a bunch of Quislings commonly referred to as “Blue Dog” Democrats. Let’s hope the next election is just as inconclusive as the last one.